


bird in a cage

by steponthegaslys



Category: Formula 1 RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Superheroes/Superpowers, Government Agencies, M/M, Other Additional Tags to Be Added
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-28
Updated: 2021-03-07
Packaged: 2021-03-12 00:48:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 7,550
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29751555
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/steponthegaslys/pseuds/steponthegaslys
Summary: Daniel Ricciardo was 11 when he discovered his powers, and was 31 when he was consigned to national service for the rest of his life for using them.
Relationships: Lewis Hamilton/Sebastian Vettel, Pierre Gasly/Charles Leclerc
Comments: 7
Kudos: 39





	1. prologue

**Author's Note:**

> hey, here's the thing that's been consuming my brain pretty heavily for the past few weeks lmao. there's a few chapters written ahead, but there will still be a gap between updates as things get shifted! i hope you enjoy :)

Michael Italiano sighed as he let his eyes run over the legal documents spread over his desk one last time before looking at Daniel.

“I think a guilty plea is your only option,” he said, letting his hands clasp together on the desk in front of him. “I mean, I’ve looked through everything we’ve got. There’s no way out of this Dan, you know that if I thought there was a chance I’d take it, but…” 

Daniel didn’t let his face change, despite the sinking feeling in his stomach. It had been what he’d been expecting after all, after what he’d done.

The first time that he’d used his powers, he’d been eleven. He and Michelle had been wading back to their grandparents’ house through snow on one christmas visit to Italy, they hadn’t expected the weather to turn on them so suddenly, and they’d been caught in a freak snowstorm without anything more than the stuff they’d been wearing for their snowball fight.

Michelle had been getting colder, and she’d dragged him into a wooded area with trees in the hopes that the canopy of conifer branches above them would keep them warm, but she’d also wrapped her jacket around Daniel’s shoulders when he’d started shivering and not making sense, and Daniel had seen how she’d stopped shivering, how she was getting tired, and he’d pleaded for something,  _ anything _ , to help them keep warm.

He still had nightmares about watching that forest go up in flames before his eyes, the pair of them trapped inside it, smoke burning the inside of his nose and soot coating both of their skin.

  
Still. That was nothing compared to what he’d done now.

“What kind of sentence do you think I’m going to get?” asked Daniel finally.

“That’s the thing,” said Michael quietly. “When it comes to crimes related to…  _ you know _ -”

“Powers. We can say it out loud now,” sighed Daniel. 

Michael looked hesitant, like the word was something that was still meant to stay unspoken, but he relented. “Powers,” he continued, looking to Daniel for approval before continuing, “they don’t publish the case law. Obviously everyone knows that people with powers exist. They’re rare, but they definitely exist, even if nobody’s really out in the open with them. But there’s not a single published judgement out there where they’ve set out a sentence for someone with them.”

“So either I’m the first, or they’re keeping it buried.”

“And we both know you’re  _ really _ unlikely to be the first,” nodded Michael. “There’s a reason they split you into lethals and non-lethals in their statistics. It’s not going to be just for fun.”

  
  
  


* * *

  
  
  
  


His trial had been held in secret, early on a tuesday morning before the rest of the court proceedings for the day got underway. There’d only been four people in the room - Daniel, Michael, the prosecution lawyer, and the judge herself. 

Daniel hadn’t been allowed to tell his family the date or location, and Michael had only been allowed to represent him on a condition of sworn secrecy. The police were going to inform his family of the outcome, that’s what they’d told him anyway. Daniel knew that Michael had already spoken to them, had pre-warned them that Daniel probably wouldn’t be coming home, but that they didn’t know where he’d end up going to instead.

And seeing the evidence laid out before him, he knew that Michael had been right. There was no way to dispute the charges against him, no clever trick or loophole to escape the fact that a guilty plea was going to be his only option to try and decrease whatever his sentence was going to end up being.

That didn’t mean that his hands didn’t shake as he entered his plea though, and it didn’t mean that his voice hadn’t cracked on the final syllable. It didn’t mean that he’d not felt his heart pound, and cold sweat up his back, as the judge had deliberated, that he hadn’t looked to Michael and  _ finally _ cried over this entirely stupid situation when he’d been able to hold it in ever since his arrest. 

Michael had held him, had told him that whatever this sentence turned out to be, it’d be okay. That Michael would try his best, that he would try and search for more evidence and appeal the judgement, that he  _ knew _ that even though Daniel was pleading guilty, things hadn’t happened the way the trial was trying to lay them out. Things were being made to look worse than they were, even though Daniel was guilty it wasn’t ever something that he’d intended to happen, it hadn’t been planned, that he’d try and get it converted to a lesser charge.

And Daniel had been taken into a separate room, away from Michael once the judge had finished deliberating, and told that his sentence was that he would be performing national service for the rest of his life. Service to Australia, and all the governments she was currently allied with, rather than being caged and left to rot inside a cell for what he’d done.

The judge had stared into his eyes as she delivered her judgement, and had told him to be grateful.

National service certainly wasn’t a harsh sentence for murder, after all.


	2. life anew

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> here we go, time to start getting into it...

Daniel groaned as he woke up to a roar of electricity rushing around the room, and then a loud click followed by silence that told him that Lando had accidentally shorted the power in the mansion  _ again _ . 

Two years of living in this mansion had left him completely unsurprised at the events that he’d woken to though, because there was always  _ something _ going on. He’d not woken on his own terms since he’d come.

Two years ago he’d been brought there handcuffed, angry and anxious and  _ humiliated _ that he was going to be the Australian government’s dog, subject to their whims for the rest of his fucking life. 

Fuck, the Swiss governments dog, since apparently that was where Australia liked to send their wayward people with powers, rather than risk them getting loose and terrorising their small island. The secret service agents who had flown him over certainly hadn’t seemed to act like it was their first time doing it, after all.

Lewis had welcomed him with open arms and an understanding heart from the second he’d turned up though, and had made him realise that this kind of national service  _ really _ wasn’t too terrible a sentence.   
  
Life was fairly peaceful, aside from mission trips to do the bidding of the alliance of governments that controlled them. The mansion was beautiful, with expansive grounds to keep them far away from anybody who wasn’t aware of them, and anything they wanted, aside from freedom, was given. Daniel had taken great pleasure in making the Australian government buy him stupid amounts of alcohol and clothes and a fucking  _ Ferrari _ at the start.

Even though he couldn’t drive it anywhere but the grounds, it had reignited that fire inside him.

Not having to live in secret, not having to push his powers down and try to fit into normality, because even though people knew about powers, most still lived in fear of them, had felt  _ good _ . He’d been able to use them openly within the grounds, setting campfires for his housemates and lighting barbecues, and sometimes he’d even go out to the back and shoot balls of fire at concrete walls to let off steam, and nobody batted a fucking eye.

  
Hell, he even got to call his family occasionally, remind them that he was okay and happy, even if he did miss Perth weather. He couldn’t tell them where he was, or what he was doing, and the calls were monitored to ensure he didn’t leak a single thing, but he could hear their voices, and he could let them know that they didn’t need to worry.

“You really had to knock the internet out right now, Lando?” he heard George yell, and with that, Daniel shifted to sit up, rubbing his eyes. The younger two got loud when they argued, and this was going to turn into an argument if Lando didn’t fix the electricity in the house soon. 

“You’re just pissed off I cut off your porn!” called Lando through the hallways, but Daniel could feel that the room was already starting to frost up, and that usually meant that Valtteri was rapidly getting pissed off (the man’s lack of complete control over his powers really made it easy to recognise when things were going to shit), and Daniel decided it was better to try and head this off before Lando accidentally caused major damage to the mansion or got himself in shit with one of the more senior members of their group.

“What’s going on?” asked Daniel, trying to hold back a laugh as he watched George open his door, and create a gust of wind to direct a paperweight to fly across the hallway and bang against Lando’s door loudly. 

“I was just trying something out,” said Lando, and there were some more crackling sounds coming from the circuitry around the hallway that Daniel would have thought were ominous were he not so used to this shit by now. “I’m gonna fix it now!”

“Good,” said Daniel, nodding. “Do I want to know what you were trying out?”

“...no,” called Lando dully, and with that, Daniel decided to go downstairs and get some breakfast.

“Seb’s still out then?” Daniel asked as he entered the kitchen and saw Lewis sat at the table. A mug that probably once held one of the weird herbal teas he was into was sat in front of him, and he was flipping through a book that was probably on something too zen for Daniel to understand. He looked relaxed, dressed in a pair of sweats and a loose baggy shirt, his head resting in his hand as he used his powers to flip the pages without moving as he read.

“Yeah,” said Lewis, not looking up from his book. “They said that wherever he was going, it’d be a couple of days. So maybe back today, I dunno man.”

“You know he’d get in contac with yout if there was an issue anyway,” said Daniel, digging through the fridge.  _ Fuck _ , Valtteri had obviously finished the eggs, he’d have to ask their handlers to get some more. There was still bacon though, so he pulled that out, fishing through the fridge to find something else to have with it.

“He would,” nodded Lewis, flipping to the next page of his book and then looking up as the kitchen light turned back on. “Lando fixed his mess then?”

“He said he was on it,” nodded Daniel, moving over to the stove and setting a pan on it. “It was getting cold upstairs, I guess he knew Val would have his ass if he didn’t get a move on.” He frowned as he saw the pan was taking too long to warm (well maybe not for normal people, but he was  _ particularly _ impatient), and created a flame in the palm of his hand to run over the metal, speed things up a little.

“Don’t set the fire alarms off again,” Lewis warned. “Romain only got back at 3am, he won’t be happy.”

“3am?” asked Daniel. “What was he doing?”

“They’re still suspicious about the french hospital group,” said Lewis. “I think they wanted to see if they could get any more information. They had him listen in on one of their meetings or something.”   
  


“Did he say whether he heard anything?” asked Daniel interestedly, extinguishing the flame in his hand and dropping the bacon in the pan. He could see Lewis’ nose wrinkle at the smell of bacon fat, but he was used to that by now. He’d told Lewis to ask for them to put an extractor fan in, but Lewis always said he didn’t feel like dealing with the kitchen being out of commission for a day or two while their handlers got it done for them.

“Apparently it was just a regular, boring board meeting,” sighed Lewis. “Profits and patient safety. Nothing useful.”

Despite France being part of their alliance of governments, some of the other countries had started to become suspicious that they weren’t being entirely…  _ truthful _ about their population of people with powers. They had a population similar to that of Britain, which had given the alliance Lewis, George, and Lando. Yet France had offered exactly none of their citizens to the alliance from the very moment it had been founded, hadn’t even told the other governments whether they’d even had trials for anyone.

And mysteriously, France was growing more prosperous in a time where similar countries were either stagnating, or in a financial recession. Their life expectancy had shot up by a couple of years, despite no evidence that the french people had changed their habits in the slightest. Smoking was on the rise slightly in fact, as people tried to keep up with how french businesses were expanding, going to different countries - one more than any of the others.

A hospital network, which had gone from being based solely in Rouen a few years ago and now was taking over hospitals throughout France, along with expansion into Germany and Switzerland and Ireland. Excellent outcomes, and exactly zero publications in medical journals on how they were doing it. Patient reviews claiming their lives had been saved when other doctors had written them off - but all of them unable to say why the treatment had suddenly worked at  _ those _ hospitals.

If it had just been the hospital group’s expansion, it wouldn’t have been so suspicious. But wherever they expanded, it seemed that the market for drugs did too, and while that had been fine when it had just been France it was affecting, a growing drug trade in other countries was a  _ problem _ . 

Combined with the hospital group not reporting any profits, it had been strange enough for other governments to start looking into them. So far nothing had turned up, but they were still looking.

“Whatever they’re doing, they’re good at covering themselves,” said Daniel, flipping the bacon.

“They are. I’m surprised they didn’t just send Seb there,” admitted Lewis. “Everything else is just wasting time.”

“Maybe they will,” said Daniel. “Don’t give them ideas though, you know he’ll want a few days rest when he gets back. He’s always a nightmare when he’s overworked too - don’t give me that look, even if he’s softer with you than he is with any of the rest of us, I think George is still scarred after waking him up after he got back from that mission in Belgium.”

  
  
  


* * *

  
  


Sebastian Vettel had changed a lot in the two years that Daniel had known him.

When he’d first met Sebastian, he’d found him maybe a little  _ too _ cocky, arrogant at times, and he’d hated that Seb knew exactly how to get into people’s heads (though, Daniel guessed his ability to read minds kind of explained that). He’d known which buttons to press, and was impossible to argue with, and he used that to his advantage even when he shouldn’t have.

Now, Sebastian was one of the most measured of their group. He’d matured over the last two years, had settled down with Lewis where they’d been on and off before (and it had the effect that Daniel had way less late night counselling sessions in the kitchen in the middle of the night with Lewis), had stopped using his powers to generally piss people off. He’d been welcoming to the younger ones when they’d come, much better than he’d been when Daniel first came. He was now a sense of calm, and rationality, to the point that the Sebastian Vettel of two years agi seemed like a distant memory.

Daniel didn’t know what had left Seb looking so weary as he walked in through the front door of the mansion that night, but he knew better than to ask, knew better than to interrupt Sebastian going to Lewis. Lewis had always understood Sebastian the best out of any of them, and was a solid leader to them all, ready to support when it was needed. 

“Shit,” murmured Lando from next to him once they’d heard the sound of Seb’s feet on the stairs. “Do you think it’s the french thing again?”

“I doubt it,” said Romain from where he was sat on one of the oversized couches that surrounded the TV in the living room. He’d been quiet up until then, reading about something on his iPad (recipe books, if Daniel had to guess, there’d been a delivery of food that Romain had seemed way too excited about earlier), but the way in which Lando and George immediately sat up a little straighter once he started speaking seemed to spur him on. “There was nothing interesting in their meeting last night. Maybe Monte Carlo? One of the CEOs is in a relationship with the heir to a casino there, that’s about the only thing we found out that was new.”

“If Seb got to go to Monaco and have fun, I’m complaining,” sighed George. “He actually  _ likes _ the weather here.”

“He also speaks french and italian though,” pointed out Romain. “Where despite all the free time you have, you’ve never bothered to learn a new language so you’ll get sent to fun places.”

George just sighed, sinking back into the couch and muttering something about the British education system.

  
  


* * *

  
  
  
  


Daniel was woken the next morning by someone shaking his shoulder and calling his name, and not stopping despite Daniel rolling over and pulling the covers tight over himself. It happened often enough that he’d figured out now that if he just curled up tight and rolled his face into the wall -

_ “Daniel,” _ called a voice in his head finally, and begrudgingly Daniel opened his eyes to see Sebastian stood over him. He looked less than impressed at how much effort he’d had to put into waking him up, and simply sighed and stepped back as Daniel sat up in bed.

“We have an assignment,” said Sebastian, rubbing over his face wearily. He hadn’t shaved, stubble decorating his chin, clearly this had just been sprung on him as well. 

And that caught Daniel’s attention, because he and Seb were rarely assigned things as a team. Usually it’d be Lando or George with him, or Valtteri occasionally despite how their powers were pretty much opposites. Sebastian’s powers didn’t connect with his at all. 

The only thing he could think of was that they wanted someone with offensive powers with Sebastian, which implied they were going to be doing more than simply tracking whatever the hell was going on with the french hospital group. So far, that had been a completely zero contact affair. 

“Where are we going?” asked Daniel, ignoring the way that his joints creaked as he got out of bed. He’d definitely spent too much time on the VR with George and Lando last night, and his joints weren’t as young as they used to be.

“Rouen. North west France,” said Sebastian. “It’s still the hospital group thing, I think.”

Toto laid out their assignment properly once they were on the jet to Rouen.

It seemed that one of the CEOs of the hospital network had made an unexpected trip to Rouen, booked only a few hours after Sebastian had left Monte Carlo, and they’d been asked to find out what was going on. 

“The person you’re going to be tracking is Pierre Gasly,” explained Toto, bringing up a picture of a handsome man in his 20s, with bright blue eyes and soft brown highlights in his hair. Daniel guessed it must have been from a business website - the picture had definitely been posed for, rather than the CCTV images they usually got given of targets. “He used to work as a registered nurse, before he somehow became one of the two CEOs last year. His flight was booked last night, and we’re not sure why. It’s possible that something happened last night that might have sparked this move, forced him into it. We can’t rule out that it wasn’t you, Sebastian.”

“Is he likely to be armed?” asked Sebastian.

“Doubtful. Airport security found nothing on him when he entered France, and we had his luggage checked. Can’t rule it out though, he might have something stashed in Rouen, we think it’s actually his hometown, so he’s got options to hide things away there,” said Toto, before bringing up a picture of another man, this time a grainy CCTV shot of a taller man following behind Gasly. “His associate, Alexander Albon might be though. We don’t know much about him, other than that he’s british and seems to act as one of Gasly’s bodyguards. He met Gasly at the airport, so nothing had to go through security on his way there.”

“So the twink, we’re probably safe around. It’s the muscle he’s bringing with him that we need to watch out for,” said Daniel.

“Any information you can get, we need. If you can get it without making Gasly aware, even better,” said Toto as the jet landed. “I’ve put the last known location for Gasly on your phones, we’ll have a recon flight ready for you at 9pm local time and I’ll transmit the location to you closer to the time. Good luck.”

Daniel sighed, looking up to watch the jet leave when they were off. “So see what Gasly’s up to, then get out? Sounds easy enough.”   
  
“I’m not so sure it will be,” said Sebastian quietly.

“Worried that he spotted you in Monte Carlo?” asked Daniel, looking at him curiously.

“No,” said Sebastian simply. “But I’m worried about the fact that Rosberg was also in Monte Carlo last night.”


	3. pas de deux

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> haha lets start to heat things up...

Daniel had to admit that his knowledge about Nico Rosberg was limited.

Through conversations he’d overheard the ends of, he knew that he was linked in some way to Lewis. He knew that they’d worked together at some point before Lewis’ arrest and conviction, and that he also had powers that Lewis knew about, but he knew very little else.

Lewis hadn’t even been particularly violent, as far as he was aware - he’d been a thief or something if Daniel’s assumptions were correct (they never really went into detail about each others convictions, which Daniel was very grateful for and not the slightest bit keen to change), so surely Rosberg couldn’t be that bad either? Otherwise he’d be locked up alongside Lewis.

Sebastian knowing about him and seeming worried about his presence was unnerving though. Maybe his assumptions were wrong. 

Daniel sighed as he looked around the field they’d been dumped in, deciding to park his thoughts on Rosberg for now. Sebastian didn’t seem like he was going to say much more - so it had to be something to simply keep in the back of their heads as they tried to track Gasly. He pulled out his phone, looking at the location marker they’d been given.

“So he’s in his hospital, huh?” asked Daniel, zooming in a little to try and figure out a route. They were perhaps a mile away, maybe two, but they had a few hours to do this in and could clear that without any issue.

“Well, that’s their best guess. Though I think anybody could have come up with that,” shrugged Sebastian, starting to walk in the general direction of the main streets. “We don’t know anything about his speciality though, so where he’d be in the hospital is a mystery.

“He’s a CEO, he’s not going to be out on a ward slumming it with the rest of his workers,” said Daniel, rolling his eyes. “I bet he’s in a nice cushy boardroom somewhere making decisions. Or doing evil shit. Probably evil shit.”

“Evil shit or not, I hope he at least makes himself obvious. I don’t want this to be another assignment where we get nothing for them,” sighed Seb. 

“What was his boyfriend like? They’re probably similar,” asked Daniel. “Are we dealing with a criminal mastermind here or no?”

“The boyfriend seemed bored by the entire party he was attending. Just sat in a corner texting, and rejected any drinks people bought him,” said Sebastian. “So no evidence of him being either criminal, _or_ a mastermind.”

“Since you saw him rejecting drinks, does that mean you tested it out to see?” teased Daniel. “I’ll have to tell Lewis.”

Sebastian let out a tsk, flipping him off as they continued to walk.

The best part of their little outings was getting to be back in cities, to be able to wander around the streets again, and Daniel took full advantage of walking through Rouen. It wasn’t an overly big city, but it was busy, with people flitting in and out of boutiques along the streets, and a large glass faced opera house in the main square, and significantly more mentally stimulating than the walls of their mansion in the alps.

Don’t get him wrong, the mansion was great, and everything was provided for them.

But the little bit of freedom provided to him by ventures out beyond those four walls, even if they were to do someone else’s bidding, felt fulfilling. 

“Was Monaco this busy?” asked Daniel, and he could see Sebastian roll his eyes a little.

“We’re going to stick out like a sore thumb if you keep speaking english Dan,” sighed Sebastian. “Monaco’s busier though, way too crowded for its own good if you ask me.”

“Sorry, but Toto hasn’t coughed up for french lessons,” shrugged Daniel, watching as Sebastian looked up at one of the street signs, then turning to lead him in the direction for the sign that said ‘l’ hôpital’. “Are we sure there’s only the one hospital here? Don’t want to waste time with the wrong one.”

“Do you trust me or not?” asked Sebastian.

  
  


* * *

  
  
  


Daniel had never seen a hospital like the one in Rouen.

From the outside, it was nothing particularly special - like every other hospital he’d seen before, the parking situation had him glad they’d walked, and the stone walls were drab, but the signs were well lit and everything was clean.

On the inside though, it was _immaculate_. The cream coloured walls had warm lighting lining the corridors, and the floors were sparkling clean, and the walls were decorated with tasteful artwork. Every member of staff who worked there that he’d seen so far seemed to be the picture of calm, gliding through the halls like well oiled machines, never seeming panicked in the slightest. 

It also seemed like there were staff to check that they knew where they were going every few metres, who Sebastian seemed to be managing to placate with a story about them needing to go to ‘radiologie’ (Daniel wondered if he’d thought that through, or whether it was the only department that he could guess the french name for). Unfortunately for them, that was the current obstacle they were repeatedly running into, as with each turn to try and explore somewhere new, they were keenly redirected back to where they’d said they were supposed to be going.

“This place is like a maze,” murmured Daniel, facing the glass doors of Radiologie once again, with Sebastian looking defeated in his reflection. Part of him wanted to look up the name of another department on his phone - but that’d only raise questions from the people who had directed them to radiology, wouldn’t it? There were even eyes on them now, watching how they had yet to actually set foot in the radiology department despite insisting that they wanted to go there in the first place.

Daniel had to wonder if Gasly was aware of how the efficiency of his hospital was able to stop them snooping so easily. If he was, maybe he was some kind of criminal mastermind after all. Especially with how easily the amount of staff around could be disguised as simple helpfulness.

He knew that Sebastian was _trying_ at least. Occasionally he’d stop near one of the staff members and Daniel would watch as their faces would go blank and they’d go silent mid question, and as he and Sebastian walked away they’d be rubbing their temples due to the headache that Sebastian somehow always managed to leave, but he had the sinking feeling that they were turning up empty since Sebastian was keeping on going. 

_God_ , could Toto not have figured out something to get them in, at least? He’d thought governments would have at least been able to fake them an identity or something, get them off the ground floor of the hospital in a more believable way.

When Daniel spotted one of the staff members who’d been directing them to Radiology swapping out with another girl, he decided to take a chance. Sebastian’s attempts at getting them away from this area of the hospital had only seemed to fail so far, hadn’t they?

And here was an opportunity - someone who was completely unaware of where they’d been being directed to for the past hour. He winked at Sebastian before going up to her. 

Hell, maybe she was into him? She was certainly looking him up and down as he approached, but she simply remained in her spot, letting him engage her first. She was _hot_ , with her hair perfectly styled and amber eyes, and if this was any other situation, Daniel would be doing more than asking her directions to some hospital department.

“Hey, I’m really sorry, do you speak English by chance?” he asked, and he could see her purse her lips before answering.

Typical french people not wanting to speak English - though he guessed he was the ignorant foreigner here, so it wasn’t unjustified for her.

“I do,” she said, and Daniel was surprised to find that she had a british accent, rather than the heavily accented french one he’d been anticipating. “How can I help you, sir?”

“Me and my friend are looking for the cardiology ward - his mother’s been rushed in with a heart attack, you see. He’s been trying to ask in french, but I’m not sure he’s got the wording right,” explained Daniel, hoping that Sebastian would be able to look suitably upset for him, instead of simply looking confused. “We’ve been wandering around for ages, but we keep getting directed back to here, and we don’t think that’s the right place.”

“Not a problem,” nodded the woman, breaking into a smile for them, and unlike all the others, she actually moved from her spot. Daniel grinned at Sebastian triumphantly, because they were finally getting the fuck away from the radiology department at least, even if it meant they would be stuck in a loop of trying to get away from cardiology after this. “It’s on the eighth floor I’m afraid, thankfully this will be faster than trying to walk,” explained the woman, pressing the button to call the elevator.

“See? We just needed to go for English all along,” Daniel grinned at Seb as they followed her in, watching her press the button for the correct floor.

  
Even if this all proved fruitless, at least they’d be away from the fucking radiology department, and could tell Toto they’d at least ruled out two locations for Gasly. He didn’t want to think about Toto’s reaction if they came back and said that all they’d learned is that whoever cleaned the glass doors in Gasly’s hospital did a stellar job.

They stayed quiet in the elevator though and Daniel watched how the woman’s eyes stayed trained on the display indicating the floor they were at. 

“Is this it?” Daniel asked when there came a ping on the sixth floor, and the woman shook her head.

“No, you’re going to the eighth floor,” she said, watching as the very man who they’d been searching for, Pierre Gasly, walked into the elevator with them, leaning up against the wall of it and pulling his phone out of his pocket after pressing one of the buttons.

Daniel could feel his heart pounding in his chest as he looked over their target.

Gasly was slightly shorter than he’d expected, with floppy brown hair that had been carefully coiffed into a fringe that dipped into his bright blue eyes ever so slightly. The black turtleneck he was wearing clung to him in all the right places - probably expensive fabric and tailored, the dark colour contrasting with the tanned skin that could only come from multiple holidays to sunnier regions than Rouen.

“Passez-vous une bonne journée, Alex?” Gasly asked, looking up to see the woman who’d brought them into the elevator nod.

“Ça a été très productif, je pense,” she replied, and Daniel _wished_ he knew what they were saying. A glance at Sebastian told him that it probably wasn’t quite as exciting as they’d hoped, because Sebastian seemed to not being reacting to it at all.

There was a short silence as the elevator started to move again, and Daniel watched as Gasly winced and reached up to rub at his temple. _Good_ , Seb was working on it then, thought Daniel. Maybe by the time they reached the eighth floor, they’d have enough to report back to Toto with, and they could leave and enjoy actually getting to be out of the mansion for once. Rouen had to have something fun to occupy their time with while they waited for Toto to return, right?

“Nos clients sont très impolis. L'ancien essaie de lire dans mes pensées,” said Gasly after a moment, eyes fixing on Sebastian, Daniel didn’t know what Gasly had said, but there was a dangerous twinkle in his eyes, and the woman simply smirked before pressing one of the buttons on the elevator wall.

Sebastian looked alarmed at whatever Gasly had said, and Daniel tensed then, because there was no way Sebastian should be looking alarmed, but the next thing he knew there was a featherlight touch on his jaw.

Immediately, everything started to feel floaty, and unreal, and he could tell from what he was seeing that he was sinking to the floor, but he could do nothing to stop it. He was pretty sure that Sebastian was on the floor next to him, and that Sebastian was trying to tell him something, but then everything seemed to fade out to black, and all Daniel felt was warmth, and calm.

It was the best he’d felt in fucking years, even if this wasn't the situation he really wanted to feel that way in.

  
  
  


* * *

Daniel didn’t know how long it was until he came back around to being lucid.

What he knew though, was that when he did, he was restrained on a chair, with Pierre Gasly perched on a desk in front of him, chattering away in french on his phone which was tucked by his shoulder and his ear. He seemed irritated with whoever was on the other end, rolling his eyes before snapping back at them, lips pursing as he listened. He was looking through a second phone, which Daniel realised with a sick feeling was his own, eyebrows furrowing every so often as he read.

He shifted slightly, and he realised quickly that the restraints holding his ankles and wrists to the chair were some kind of plaster, probably the same things used to make casts for broken bones.

Plaster, he realised. _Fireproof._

Oh _shit_.

How much did Gasly know?

“Oh,” said Gasly finally, when he looked up and saw that Daniel was awake. “Je te parlerai plus tard,” he said into the phone before hanging up, then sighing as he turned his focus to Daniel. “So how is Nico these days?”

“Rosberg?” asked Daniel, narrowing his eyes as he watched Gasly get up from his position on the desk.

“Don’t play stupid, you know I mean Rosberg,” Gasly warned, eyes flashing dangerously. “I know you’re with him. Why was your friend in Monte Carlo last night?”

“He wasn’t,” said Daniel quickly, and _oh god_ , Gasly didn’t seem pleased with that answer at all if the look on his face was any clue.

“Really? You don’t think I have CCTV footage of him there watching Charles? Plus I have both of your phones with a location set for Monte Carlo’s casino on his,” said Gasly, picking up the phones to wave them at him. “I think you should start being a little more honest with me, Daniel. Things might get... painful if you don’t.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” asked Daniel, and Gasly smirked as he stepped closer to him.

Pain erupted under the skin of his neck where Gasly pressed a finger to it, a horrible raw _burning_ pain, and Daniel had never been burned, for obvious reasons, but this was what he assumed it felt like. It felt like his bones wanted to split, like they were too large for his skin and like that wanted to split too, and it had his head spinning so badly that he couldn’t see, and there was a ringing in his ears from his own screaming, and _jesus fucking christ_ -

“You’re going to talk now, aren’t you?” asked Gasly as he took his hand away, the pain disappearing completely as he did so. He perched back on the desk again, waiting a minute to let Daniel catch his breath again. “Tell me what business your friend had in Monte Carlo last night,” he said again, stacking Daniel and Sebastian’s phones on top of each other, looking rather bored by the situation.

“I don’t know,” said Daniel quickly. “I wasn’t with him.”

“I know you weren’t with him. Like I said, I have the CCTV. But I’m sure he didn’t stay entirely silent with you,” asked Gasly, picking up his own phone when it buzzed. 

“I really don’t know, we don’t talk much,” said Daniel quickly. “I can tell you for a fact that we’re not with Rosberg though.”  
  


“Hmm,” said Gasly, eyes running over his phone screen, and he paused to press a few buttons on it before setting it down and fixing his eyes on Daniel once again. “Explain Rosberg and your friend both appearing in the same place, at the same time then?”

“We were busy investigating you,” admitted Daniel, and Gasly snorted at that explanation. “Really. They found out your boyfriend lived there. I don’t know how Rosberg knew, but they were trailing you and anyone linked to you.”

“So you did want Charles, huh,” said Gasly, smirking. “What on earth would you be investigating me for? I run _hospitals_ , Daniel.”

“A weird amount of hospitals, and the drug trade suddenly escalates as soon as you pop another up,” said Daniel, watching Gasly face carefully. This conversation could be make or break for the investigation, as soon as they got out of this.

Shit, he hoped Seb was okay.

Gasly just seemed amused by what Daniel had just said.

“It’s not my business what the drug dealers do, I’ve got no influence over that,” shrugged Gasly. “My hospitals are nice. We get good outcomes, better than anyone else. Our patients live well, and live longer. Our staff are happy. Of course we’re successful, but a little bit of asking the people who use my hospitals could have told you why. So why are you investigating? And why would Charles be relevant?”

“Well now I know you’ve got powers,” said Daniel, frowning. “So maybe that’s why they want to investigate you, huh?”

“You and plenty of other people know about my powers,” shrugged Gasly, and Daniel hadn’t actually been expecting that. “And I know about yours, don’t I. The difference is that I help contribute to society with mine, instead of getting arrested for mur-”

There was a slam of a door opening behind them, and Gasly looked startled for the first time since he’d started speaking to Daniel, and a sense of relief washed over Daniel at that.

“Daniel, get ready!” yelled a voice behind him, and _god_ , Sebastian’s yelling had never sounded more like music to his ears!

“Ready when you are,” smirked Daniel, and Sebastian put his hands to his temples. Gasly looked vacant for a moment, before crumpling, ending up lay on top of the desk passed out.

Served the little shit right.

“Leave him there, I’ve wiped his memory,” said Sebastian quickly, taking a tendon hammer off Gasly’s desk and using it to crack the ceramic holding Daniel’s wrists and ankles together. “We need to get out of here, come on,” he urged, swiping both of their phones from next to where Gasly was lay prone.

“Like I’d wanna stay after Gasly’s hospitality,” huffed Daniel, rushing out of the room with Sebastian and back to the elevator that had brought them there, pressing the button for the ground floor repeatedly and holding the button to close the doors. His heart was pounding, expecting someone to come after them, because fuck knows what kind of lackeys Gasly would have hiding out ready to chase after them.

Fortunately nothing seemed to come, and they were simply greeted by the same staff members from before doing their best to be helpful and direct them to the exit, this time in english.

If only Gasly knew how his helpful staff had made their escape so much easier.

“Shit, we need to get back to the pickup location,” said Sebastian after glancing at his phone for the time, looking at him like he wanted him to lead, and _shit_ , Daniel had forgotten how bad Sebastian was under pressure when it came to the basics. No wonder they never usually got paired together.

Daniel took Sebastian’s wrist once they were out of the hospital, running with him through the streets of Rouen and back to the field, hoping and praying that Google Maps wouldn’t fuck them over with some impassable route. At least Sebastian seemed to be unharmed by whatever had gone on while they’d been separated, hell, maybe the adrenaline was even spurring him on, since he actually seemed to be a little faster than usual as they launched into a run towards the waiting jet.

Toto looked at them keenly as they climbed on, and Daniel let out a sigh of relief as he strapped himself in. 

Safe at last.

“You two seem to have exerted yourself. Did you get anything?” asked Toto, and Daniel could see the relief in his face when they nodded.

“Gasly’s got powers,” said Sebastian, and Daniel would be lying if he said he hadn’t forgotten that Sebastian had been inside his mind. Probably the other guy’s too. “He’s able to control pain. He used it on me and Daniel, so that wasted a bit of time, but there’s that at least.”

Well, that explained what the fuck Gasly had done to him at least, thought Daniel.

“Interesting,” said Toto, sitting back and thinking.

“I called him on it. He said a lot of other people knew he had powers, but he didn’t specify who,” said Daniel quickly. “He denied having anything to do with the drugs, said it wasn’t his business what dealers did. He thought we were with Rosberg, he knows his boyfriend was getting trailed in Monaco. He was upset about that. I had to tell him we weren’t with Rosberg, get him off that line of questioning.”

“I searched his mind. He’s not involved in the drugs part of things from what I could see,” said Sebastian. “There’s every chance I missed something, but it seems unlikely. It doesn’t mean nobody else is, but I don’t think it’s him.”

“I wonder if he’s using his powers on patients,” said Toto, eyebrows furrowed as he thought. “There’s probably a lot of people willing to heavily reward someone who can get them out of pain that nobody else has managed to get rid of.

“Probably is,” agreed Sebastian. “The other guy, Albon? No powers, and didn’t seem aware of anything except that Gasly wanted to hire some muscle and was willing to pay well. Unfortunately more of my time was spent with him than anyone else.”

“Leclerc? Anything on him?” asked Toto.

“Gasly thinks Rosberg is after him for some reason. We had to get out quickly, I didn’t get much time to probe on everything,” admitted Sebastian.

“Gasly has CCTV of Seb and Rosberg tailing Leclerc,” said Daniel. “So he has to have been anticipating something happening, right? Otherwise why would he have it in place?”

“Maybe we need to shift focus onto Leclerc,” said Toto after a few moments of thought. “It doesn’t seem like we’re going to get much further with Gasly if that’s all you managed to get from him Sebastian. Ocon might be worth more of a try as well, even if he’s harder to find.”

“Who is this Leclerc guy anyway?” asked Daniel. “Why would Rosberg be interested in him? Gasly seemed really convinced.”

“Heir to a lot of different casinos, including the biggest in Monaco,” said Toto. “Other than that, we don’t know why Rosberg would be remotely interested. Now we know Gasly has powers though…”

“He might too,” sighed Sebastian.

**Author's Note:**

> i'm over on tumblr @pierregasiy if you want to chat!


End file.
